Lok Sabha adjourned till Monday after INDIA bloc MPs demand discussion on NEET-UG fiasco

Both the Houses of Parliament – Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha – were adjourned on Friday after the Opposition leaders created a ruckus demanding a discussion on alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG examinations and the ‘failure’ of National Testing Agency (NTA) that conducts the exams. 

Members of Parliament (MPs) from Opposition parties, including the Congress, moved adjournment motions demanding discussion on the issues in both the Houses, a demand that was rejected. The decision to move these motions was taken at a meeting of the floor leaders of the INDIA bloc held on June 27 at Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in the national capital.

Congress MPs Ranjeet Ranjan and Gaurav Gogoi moved the djournment motion notice in Lok Sabha party lawmaker Syed Naseer Hussain moved the motion in Rajya Sabha.

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The Lok Sabha session began when the Speaker Om Birla read out the obituary references to members of the House, who passed away recently. After the references, the Speaker insisted that the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to President’s Address be discussed first. 

“We wanted to send out a message from Parliament to the affected youth of the country that the government and the opposition are concerned about you. That is why we had demanded a discussion before we could discuss the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address,” Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said.

After the first adjournment till noon, the House convened again. The opposition MPs continued their protest following which Speaker Om Birla adjourned the house till Monday. 

“Never before in the history of Parliament has anything else been discussed during the Motion of Thanks to President’s Address. I assure that the government will answer all questions but after Motion of Thanks to the President’s address,”  Kiren Rijiju, the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs , said in the Lok Sabha. 

Similar scenes were witnessed in Rajya Sabha too after chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar adjourned the House amid ruckus by INDIA bloc MPs demanding discussion on NEET. The proceedings of Rajya Sabha continued in the afternoon.

Held on May 5, the NEET-UG exam for admission to medical colleges has been mired in controversy due to allegations of question paper leaks and irregularities. The results of the exams were declared on June 4. The CBI on June 27  made its first arrests in the NEET-UG paper leak case, taking two people into custody in Patna, Bihar.